


Fetch Quest

by Jaxiferous



Category: Original Work
Genre: Dragons, Fairy, Fantasy, Fetch Quest, Gevadi, Magitek, Princes & Princesses, Quest, Weird Fantasy, royal family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-09
Updated: 2013-02-09
Packaged: 2017-11-28 16:22:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/676429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaxiferous/pseuds/Jaxiferous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prince Elishay and his best friend and adopted brother, Glick the Dragon, are sent on a mission by his overbearing, but well-meaning, mother. They are tasked with finding the elusive sculptor of a series of kinetic sculptures popping up all over the countryside of Gevadi. Eventually, they enlist the help of Shay's younger sister, to the detriment of their health.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fetch Quest

 

 

Fetch Quest

            “What do you think we should do today?” Shay asked, tossing the ball into the air. It was a rather large ball about the size of a big dog, incredibly heavy with a massive bell inside that rang like… uh, well, a bell.

            The bell was swatted by a very large, thick blue-and-green scaled tail. It flew high into the air, nearly touching the gilt, vaulted ceiling of the hall, and arced down towards the parquet floor of multi-colored shells. It bounced lightly, the magic material of its outside protecting the fragile musical instrument as it rang with a delightful tune. It was once again given abuse as the tail swept it up and flung it back to its first owner. The dragon, to whom the tail belonged, grinned, showing long ivory teeth. Despite the fearsome dental work, the dragon appeared in no way threatening.

            “We could go to the mines near Mount Grivel. After all, I haven’t collected enough malachite to finish my statue,” Glick, the dragon aforementioned, suggested. His small, almost puny human friend just managed to catch the ball. He set the ball down near his feet and sat on it, scuffing the shell-parquet floor. It glittered in the bright light of the morning sun, sparkling like so much mother-of-pearl.

            “True, but last time I accidentally knocked that dwarf on the head with a long piece of lumber, and I don’t think they want to talk to me very much,” Shay bemoaned, running a hand through his shaggy brown hair. His skinny frame belied a rather massive strength, characteristic of his family.

            After all, royal families almost always had some sort of odd ability or power. Most were charismatic, or scientifically able, or wizards and witches, the like. For the Gevadian royal family, they enjoyed a good dose of simple strength. The only problem tied with this ability happened to be _controlling_ that strength. Especially for one so little as Shay, he tended to forget he had that massive strength. More than once, he’d accidentally destroyed the floor of the reception hall, where they now stood, because of a careless throw of his bell-ball.

            “I believe I can change their minds,” Glick mused, sauntering over to his friend languidly. “They like me. I’m the only one who knows just as much as they do, when it comes to matters of the earth. I think they find that endearing – if dwarves find anything endearing.”

            Shay eyed his large, scaled friend. Sinewy and compact, the dragon was nearly fifteen feet long, with strong thin legs and a shiny coat of scales that looked more like burnished metal pieces. Along his elbows, knees, and head he sported an assortment of iridescent blue feathers, like some sort of exotic bird, and the servants delighted in finding one of the dragon’s feathers lying around, seeing as it made quite the accessory on a hat or hair ornament. He looked at Shay with a calm, single brown eye. Since boyhood, he’d known Glick, a dragon who should likelier be in the Wilds along the borders of their lands, not inside of the palace of a royal family. Well – perhaps if he was kidnapping the princess, but she was not currently in residence.

            Shay chuckled for a moment. Sadly, he looked out the large windows that lined the reception hall. No one was here today; he’d expected that. In fact, it was the only time he really played the bell-ball. He felt terribly embarrassed to be seen with such a childish, though huge, plaything.

            “A fish for your thoughts?” Glick said, offering a dragon-adapted adage.

            “I… I don’t know,” Shay answered truthfully, rubbing his long, thin nose. Lately he’d been plagued with a sense of purposelessness. Especially after the Announcement.

            Glick guessed this fact.

            “Does it have to--”

            “Yes,” Shay stated sharply in a sullen tone. The two of them stared out across the expanse of forest which separated them from the city. The builders of the Gevadi capital were smart; the royal family did not enjoy too much publicity, and the city architects were very aware of this fact. The forest was magical, of course. Those who were admitted within its boundaries could choose to peruse the wonderful ocean of flora and fauna, or take the fairy path that led directly to the castle by a shorter, albeit stranger, route. Shay and Glick preferred to lose themselves in the forests for a few days, camping and hunting, than enjoying the luxuries within the castle’s walls.

            “It doesn’t _mean_ anything, Shay--” Glick began, almost vehemently, but Shay interrupted the dragon.

            “Oh, yes it does. I always knew I was incompetent, and-and-and strange, and nervous, and out-of-place and… and weirdly! But it’s one thing to know it… and another for someone to tell you in front of absolutely everyone in the kingdom, in not so many words,” Shay said, finishing his strong rant with almost a weak whimper. He rested his chin on his hands as he rested his elbows on his knees. The sun shone brighter as it rose into the sky. Glick sighed, a rush of heat going past Shay’s leg.

            “Well, time heals all wounds,” was all Glick knew to say. Fortunately, he had no time to rebut Shay’s sudden outburst, because the clip-clop of hard-soled, three-inch high boot heels clicked against the floor. Shay turned his head before Glick did, as he was accustomed to that sound—and running from it. Even now, it was all he could do to ignore his urge to scurry and hide in some silent place, like a linen closet or a chest of drawers.

            “Eeeeelishaaaaay! Elishaaaaay, my daaaaarling, where are you!” a high-pitched, lovely voice called out across the hall. Shay tried his best to shrink into a ball. In fact, he was small enough that he could probably hide behind the ball he was currently sitting on top of. Audibly he gulped as his mother approached.

            Her long cape made a _whoosh whoosh_ as it swayed across the floor, and her fur-trimmed boots reached to her knees in swaths of deer leather. Pants of the finest cotton sprouted from the tops of the boots like lily petals to a belt around a thin waist. Her silk shirt magically changed color like an oil spill, with a vest of pin-striped fabric over it. A white neck as thin as a reed was topped by a porcelain face fit for a queen.

            Of course, it _was_ the face of a queen, so that makes sense.

            “Elishay, are you really playing with that blasted instrument yet again? Darling, that is a _child’s_ toy,” she drawled out almost piteously, her face one of abject disbelief. Shay resisted the urge to wince. He rocked back on it without a word, flicking his eyes between the shiny floor and his overbearing, though well-meaning, mother of a queen.

            “Was there something you wanted…Mother?” he asked, quickly tacking on the end of the sentence. Queen Moravaire was awfully touchy about her children being close to their parents. Her own parents had shoved her off on to nannies from all over the kingdom, and some outside, in order to fulfill their order of office to a tee, and she would have none of that for her own. However, there was such a thing as _too_ close.

            “Yes, yes. I have a task for you, actually,” Moravaire sing-songed loftily, pulling out a rather small note from a pocket in her cape. She handed it to her son who begrudgingly took it in hand, his dragon compatriot sniffing it gently (or else the whole thing would fly up his nose – that’d happened before).

            “A…task?” he questioned softly, staring at his mother with green, inquisitive eyes. He opened the note, and magic symbols flashed in purple ink before fading, leaving behind a long script. He dragged his finger down the side of the note, the entire message scrolling down to show the signature of the queen. Magically, a wax seal flowered next to it, disappearing when Shay scrolled back up.

            “There is a rather annoying, but artistic, person going around the countryside, leaving massive kinetic sculptures. They are obviously made by magic, but handspun magic, not the technical type. We, meaning your father and I and the Racial Counsel, have reason to believe that it must be a member of an elusive race of human types making these things; you know how it is, these races pop up the minute we’re done studying the newest one. We wish to recognize them as an official race, as well as recruit this particular member to do sculptures for our own abode. Your father, actually, suggested sending you,” Moravaire explained. Shay’s eyes widened in surprise, staring at his mother. He pointed to himself in disbelief, not even able to get the words out of his mouth.

            Glick was just as surprised. He snorted for emphasis, almost shooting a jet of flame. Shay was not the best to interact with human-like races, but he _was_ very gifted with the cultures and habits of nonhumans. Perhaps it made sense to make him an emissary to this new race. Still, it was quite the gamble to put Shay in that position. He looked at his friend, easily picking apart his facial expression and body language. His friend was obviously in shock, equal parts elated and terrified, and absolutely unsure of what to make of the matter.

            “Now, every time we have tried to talk to this person of interest, they always seem to get away just as we get on their tail. Do be careful, dear, as I don’t know if he or she or it is dangerous, or, heaven forbid, an extrovert. Once cornered, there’s no telling what that creature may do,” she warned, tapping her son on the nose. Shay was still in a state of shock, staring at his mother with a look that spoke volumes – particularly of the screaming variety.

            “You don’t have to thank me dear,” Moravaire declared, shutting her son’s mouth for him before going off in a rush of cape and fur. She trotted back down the hall, and the two just watched.

            “I think I know what we’re going to do today,” Shay breathed in a rush.

 

            ***

            “So, Mummy told me that this is what we’re using for, uh, for tracking this… this humanoid,” Shay said, turning the device upside down and right side up and side ways and down ways and all other ways possible. Glick took it between two finger pads, very gently examining it with one brown eye. The dragon pressed a single button on the face of the burnished brass box. It suddenly blinked to life, a glass screen glowing magically. An inexplicable ball of light pulsed softly at the top.

            Glick handed it back to Shay, who thoughtfully looked at the blinking rectangle block of shiny metal. He gave Glick a stare and stated, “I knew it did that.”

            Glick merely ruffled a few feathers in response, as well as a raised eyebrow.

            “It’s been magically programmed to detect the perpetrator from the evidence that’s been collected, so I guess we just start walking,” Shay suggested, following the blinking arrow that had appeared on the screen. Glick _thought_ about offering to fly them…

            _“GLICK! GLICK WHERE IS THE GROUND?! GLICK I CAN’T HOLD ON YOU’RE SO SLIPPERY THERE’S A MOUNTAIN GLICK GLICK GLICK STOP BARREL ROLLING STOP STOP I’M GOING TO THROW UUUUUUUUP!”_

…and then, he _thought_ better of it.

            They walked through the fairy arch that magically transported them through to the palace gate into the palace’s city courtyard entrance. The two of them used the service gate, bypassing long lines of visitors, tourists, and dignitaries from all parts of Gevadi waiting to enter the famed palace. This service gate also took them past the large, grassy pastures that were the parking lots, housing all sorts of interesting transportation devices, from horseless carriages driven by steam and magic, horsed carriages that looked like it was held together by hope and paste, all manners of animal transport (including a very large goose), and others more out of the norm, such as carpets and, at one point, a unicycle. Luckily, these service gates were linked by fairy arches, large floating mushroom gates so brightly colored it almost made the eyes water, so walking the nearly five mile stretch could take as little as ten minutes.

            All the while, they ignored the crowds, the odd vehicles, and the arches, interested only in the pointing of the little arrow on the brass box’s face and the blinking light that wandered ahead of the box, leading them in the general direction of the person they happened to be looking for.

            After deciding walking was too much trouble (after all, they had to reach Garreldine, which was almost ten miles out of the city), they opted to use the fairy transit. This was different from the fairy arches, as those could only take a few people at a time a short distance. Fairy transit was much more… interesting.

            “Who are you?” the fairy behind the counter asked, sighing in a bored fashion. Shay’s well-dressed form and royal personage could not hide the fact that he was fidgeting, sweating, and looking like a very guilty thief. That, and he was traveling with a dragon, which was drawing quite a few stares and more than a few whispers, adding to his discomfort.

            “Uh, I, uh, I’m traveling, and I need a ticket, no, no, two, two tickets to, uh, to… to Grimwald, NO NO. NO. Not-not Grimwald, uh… t-to Garreldine, yes. I need two… tickets to G-garreldine, please, if you mate, MAY, I SAID MAY.” Shay felt like slapping himself in the face a dozen times over, with a swift kick to the backside for good measure.

            The fairy, humanoid enough to make Shay uncomfortable and glamoured enough to make him panic, stared at him as if he’d grown a third head. She’d seen it before. It was nothing new. This sort of tomfoolery, however… that was.

            “You… didn’t answer my question,” she drawled. “Who are you?”

            Of course, she knew exactly who he was. Still, security procedure required a name. Her boss would pluck each of her six wings off one by one if he found out they hadn’t complied with regular procedure to the smallest punctuation mark. Vampires were testy like that. And it was fun to mess with royalty, if only in a small way.

            “I am Glick Vertscale and this is Shay of House Rowmoor. We are on palace business. Two tickets to Garreldine, if you please, madam,” Glick answered succinctly, though politely. His brown eye seemed to spark with a small fire, a rare occurrence. Glick could tell just what this fairy was up to. The fairy looked at the dragon with a stunned expression before swiftly waving a hand at a magic pen. It quickly wrote her out two tickets for travelers, and she handed it over.

            With the tickets in hand, or claws rather, the pair headed towards the transport rings.

            “How do you… do that?” Shay asked, staring at the dragon. Glick ruffled his feathers a little, his spine feathers stiffening into a crest for a moment.

            “Lots of practice. I have to try harder than everyone else. I’m a dragon. And I’m… well-versed in body language. You humans say everything with how you move. Fairy kind are no different. She was pulling on your leg, so I decided to remind her to get back to work,” Glick stated simply, not daring to look his friend in the eye. Shay sighed, careful to step over the ring of mushrooms.

            The fairy rings were a good fifty feet in circumference, set in a massive field. Each one was marked with a number, and a fairy technician stood by each one to ensure its safe use. Of course, if a fairy ring ever malfunctioned, there wasn’t much point trying to salvage what was left, human or technical. Nobody on earth could put _that_ many pieces back together. It was perfectly safe. Perfectly. That one incident honestly didn’t count. Rock giants were hardly people anyways.

            “I just don’t understand how you’re so good at interaction, and I’m not. I mean… you’re a dragon, for crying out loud!” Shay lamented. Glick growled softly in the back of his throat, partly sad and partly annoyed.

            “Well, no point in worrying about it now. The best you can do is try your hardest and learn from your mistakes. We’ll be in Garreldine in a few minutes,” Glick said, staring at the clear blue sky, a longing look on his reptilian face. Shay felt a pang of guilt for his complaint. Glick and Shay had a lot in common, namely being of one race yet never fitting in. Glick at least had the excuse of being a dragon. That also meant that Glick had all the flack that came with being a dragon, too.

More and more beings filled the circle, mostly humans, and all of them stared. The prince was big business. Especially after the Announcement. With practiced indifference, the two shrugged off the whispers, glares, ogles, and giggles.

            “Please keep all hands, feet, wings, tentacles, antennae, and other appendages within the boundaries of the circle at all times. Please put down all foodstuffs and liquids, unless they are a part of your everyday bodily function, and do not look at the sky while we are in transit. You may feel a slight tingling sensation; this is normal while in transit. Afterwards, it is either a sign of post-transit sickness, which will go away in an hour, or a terrible otherworldly rash that will need immediate medical attention and a paper bag to go you’re your head. Please allow me to remind you that any and all injuries or dismemberments may be reported to our office of legal consultants for instant dismissal and/or derision as we have already cited all fairy ring conduct. Have a nice day, and enjoy your transit,” the fairy attendant sighed nasally, and the fairy technician fluttered his iridescent wings while he put the coordinates in the correlating mushroom by way of magically spreading spores.

            Suddenly, the mushrooms lengthened, growing to a height of nearly forty feet, and their heads expanded until they created a room over the entire congregation. Those who’d never been to a fairy transit gasped, while the more experienced lay on the ground and got ready for the heaving sickness that was to come. It was to the latter group that both Shay and Glick belonged.

            “I hope you didn’t eat a heavy breakfast,” Glick mentioned with a grin. Shay already looked sick, and they hadn’t even started their journey.

            “Only three bagels, two legs of fowl, a glass of apple juice, and an entire vine of grapes,” Shay moaned.

            “I should have brought a canvas. That’s going to look beautiful when we leave,” Glick chuckled.

            Very suddenly, it was as if all space and time had stretched and twisted. The tingling sensation the fairy attendant had warned about was indeed there – along with an incredibly uncomfortable feeling of being stretched beyond limits fathomable, a blaring headache from sensory overload, and a strange pins-and-needles feeling in the lower extremities, for those who had them. It lasted only a few seconds. After those interminable few moments in hell (which was actually a fairy version of a road and a car all jumbled together into one thing), the thing came to an abrupt stop. The mushrooms shrank, revealing a beautiful copse of trees in yet another fairy transit station.

            The fairy attendant hadn’t even spoken yet, and already three or four had given up their entire breakfast to the grass beneath their feet. The fairy wrote that down. It had to be a record somewhere. Somewhere in the distance, a cat yowled. Someone had stepped on its tail getting out. The fairy winced in sympathy. His feet could attest to that sort of pain from new transit users.

            “Please step out of the circle. You may feel a little disorientation, so do be careful stepping over the fairy ring. Any knocked over mushrooms must be paid for, and their ancestry apologized to. They don’t appreciate that sort of thing, and it takes a sincere apology to get them working again,” the fairy said enthusiastically, leading the newcomers off to the side where trash buckets leading to an underground sewage barrel were set up specifically for them.

            Meanwhile, Shay and Glick set off to work; that is, right after Glick had horked up an entire hog – Shay was proud to say he kept his breakfast. After a few days of interviews it was clear, though, that finding this evasive figure was going to be harder than expected.

            “He was bigger’n a giant! Fifty feet tall, with horns, ‘n a club, ‘n a paint brush!”

            “Oh, I’d say he was… y’know, tiny. Real small, blue overcoat, little cart.”

            “He stood five foot six, and he had antlers. Oh yes, he had big antlers. He might’ve even been one of them centaur fellas.”

            “Eh, ginger haired, catty eyes, kinda shady lookin’. He stayed in this hotel y’know. Hey. Wanna see my collection of giant toenail clippings? Got one nearly big as  you.”

            “We’re getting nowhere,” Shay sighed. Those who’d been willing to speak with either Shay or Glick were the weirder ones with the odd ideas. The other people were usually put off by Shay’s inability to spit words out to other humans, and they were terrified of Glick. Despite the popularity Glick enjoyed in the city, he was still something of contention to those who lived out in the country and were constantly plagued by constant dragon attacks. At the outskirts of town the mechanical sculpture twisted and turned like a miniature carnival turned on its side.

            “I agree. We need some help,” Glick stated, flicking his tail in frustration. He shrank into a small ball as several trash cans were turned over by the action, causing a rather loud reckoning from a woman in a tenement above them. The hostile reactions the dragon had received made him antsy and on edge, further hindering their ability to gain information on the mysterious figure. They’d already been accosted by several old women with canes about how the world was going to heck in a handbasket, and the next thing they knew there’d be unholy unions between dwarves and elves. Alongside that, their little tracker seemed to be leading them into dead ends.

            The two lounged on a curb for a while, watching the townsfolk walk by. It was a rather large town, big enough to have its own market. Most of the buildings were only a few stories high, at most three. Shay ran a hand through his shaggy, dark hair. He’d changed out of royal dress into more drab attire in order to blend in and make others more at ease, opting to only wear his royal jewel crest under his clothes as a sign of his heritage. However, it had done nothing to enamor the people to him. He kept tripping over his words… and others’ feet. He’d also broken quite a few door handles, faucets, and other assorted household items, so that definitely did not work in his favor. In fact, he’d just come back from fixing one said household item, a chest of drawers he’d tipped over.

Exhausted, he set his foot out, nearly tripping a black cat that was running from a rather friendly looking retriever. Several people watched them go before returning to their business. Glick resisted the urge to chase both, knowing that that could only lead to more havoc. Despite his human upbringing, the dragon still had dragon instincts, namely ‘chase the fast moving object’ and ‘keep the shiny thingie’.

            “At this rate we’ll never – hey, hey, hey!!” Shay suddenly stood up and started running, holding out the box in front of him. Glick followed without a single word, racing by like a blue and green streak. Shay leapt between people, accidentally shoving an entire ensemble of twenty women into a fountain.

            “Sorry!!” he shouted behind him as he followed the blinking light of the brass box that was flitting between streets and through alleys. He tumbled over trash cans, ducked under clotheslines, and managed to almost break down a door in his haste to follow the glowing light. Several girls screamed as he ran through their humbled abode, Glick hot on his heels. The dragon stopped for a moment to admire the ladies, who merely stared at the dragon in abject horror and surprise. Finally, the dragon winked cheekily before continuing the chase.

            The large lizard almost smashed into his two legged friend. The prince stood in front of a rather high wall, a cat disappearing over the side with a flick of its tail. The ball glowed at the base of the wall, not moving any further, merely weaving back and forth. Shay bent down and examined it.

            “I don’t understand. It just suddenly… stopped. Right here. But there’s nobody over here but us,” Shay panted, looking up at the wall. Glick curled his tail around him and his friend, staring at the high wall. He blinked his large brown eyes before looking at his best friend and stating, “I think it’s time we got some help.”

            Shay’s eyes turned into saucers.

            “No. _NO. No no no no no absolutely not—_ “

            “She’s your sister.”

            “She’s the reason I nearly have to take those herbal teas mother makes for me!”

 

            ***

            “I don’t believe him. Finicky, rascally, smart, too gentle, forgiving, reptile…” Shay grumbled under his breath as he followed the road to Invergon. Shay and Glick had separated, with Glick going after Princess Migradian while Shay went to the next town. Shay’s little device no longer seemed to be working either, seeing as the thing had stopped beeping and stated that he was already at his destination.

            “He doesn’t understand. He just doesn’t!” he lamented to his horse, Fairfax and the cat that sat on the horse’s rump. The royal thoroughbred seemed to roll his eyes, and the cat meowed sardonically – but of course, these animals don’t truly understand English. They do, however, understand _whining._

            “I mean, it’s not like he was ever going to be in line anyways. He had nothing to lose to her. And she always liked him as it was. She could never find anything wrong with Glick. Well… neither can I, but the matter still stands!” Shay muttered to himself. It was odd that he was so much more eloquent while talking to a horse and a cat than he was when trying to speak to his own mother. Then again, Moravaire had a tendency to talk _over_ Shay, so that could be a factor.

            The reason Shay and Glick had split up was quite simply a matter of practicality, not one of anger. Shay was sore over his sister, but not so much that he would dare take it out on Glick. Unlike Shay who is shy by nature and prefers the outdoors to social parties, Migradian was a butterfly among the grasshoppers in terms of the court. She could charm most anyone – if it wasn’t for her terrible temper. Even at the time of being a babe, she’d smashed her entire crib merely from want of the bottle. Her violent outbursts were only checked by her father, from whom she took her valiant and, at times, dangerous strength. She was younger than Shay by three years, and, quite frankly, she had absolutely terrified him.

            In fact, she was so terrifically terrible that she thought she herself needed some time on her own. She had an independent streak as long and wide as a rainbow, and she believed that it was time for her to strike out on her own. And therefore, she had her own tower, populated by Migradian, Migradian, and… well, Migradian. Shay was not opposed to this. In fact, he supported it. After all, he loved her, and even better, he could still love her from afar. It was that simple.

            The tower was about an hour’s ride from Invergon, so Glick had proposed they meet halfway. Shay agreed, but he was none too happy about his sister’s involvement. This was his assignment, and he was determined to see this done right, by none other than himself. He had to prove that he was a useful part of the family. So they couldn’t all be crown royalty. At least he could put his expertise in use.

            Shay looked at the sky, noting the height of the sun. For some reason, that nagged on him. It was, after all, still quite early. The mist had not yet truly left the ground. To the west he could see that billows of smoky fog still clung to the earth. He shivered as he thought about his sister’s scary stories about will-o-the-wisps taking people away and then putting them to sleep—

            Sleep. His sister’s nap was almost always at ten o clock. It was nine forty-five, by the sun.

            Shay suddenly spurred his horse to the west, going off the track. He couldn’t be late! He had to beat that dragon to the tower! The horse whinnied in surprise as he was urged forward at a breakneck pace, the cat yowling at it clung to the saddle with its claws.

            Princess Migradian almost always, always, always took a nap, and no one besides Shay knew better than what happened to those who prematurely awakened her. Hopefully Glick remembered this important fact! In his desperation, Shay used a few teleport spells he’d learned from his wizard-turtle friend, spurring his horse faster. Closer and closer amid clinging streamers of purple magic, he could see Migradian’s tower growing along the skyline of mist. He stopped in her courtyard, spraying dirt and dismounting the cat rather involuntarily. The horse whinnied in momentary pain as Shay yanked on the reins a tad too hard, and Shay muttered several apologies. He panted as he looked up at the tower.

            All seemed calm. He didn’t know if that was a good sign or a bad sign.

            There was a sudden yell, and a dark dot began to arc in the air. Shay let out a whimper.

            Glick crashed into the ground, skidding past Shay in a comical position on his stomach. His gold belly-scales protected him from harm, but his feathers were halfway ruffled. He wheezed a single cough as Shay hopped off his horse to see how his friend was doing. The dragon only had one word to say.

            “Run.”

            A rumbling came from inside of the tower as doors were slammed open and shut. A single, muffled cry slowly built in volume and pitch as the front door of the fifty foot tall tower was thrown open to reveal a very angry, very groggy princess.

            “SHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!” she roared, the guttural screech of raw fury practically turning Shay into a ball of nostalgic horror, dread, and helplessness.

            “I’m going to _strip_ the skin off of you, and then I’ll _tan_ it lily-liver white, like your own _heart,_ and then I’ll take all the _meat_ off you, feed it to _pigs,_ and use the bones to _make glue,_ ” Migradian hissed in sleep-deprived loathing at her older brother. By this time, Glick had dragged himself out of his self-made rut and shaken off all the dirt stuck to his feathers. He had time to preen later, so he decided to deal with the current problem.

            “Shay needs some help, actually,” Glick began. Shay slowly straightened up, feeling more confident now that Glick seemed to be standing between him and his irate sister.

            That didn’t last long.

            Glick was suddenly grabbed by the nostril with two white fingers, both of which Glick stared at incredulously and with a bit trepidation, before he was flung backwards into a room of the castle through a window with a great crash. Shay audibly swallowed. It was a good thing Glick was a dragon. Shay, however, was not a dragon. He was not so lucky.

            “Look. Miggy, I know you don’t like having your nap disturbed, but please, please, _please_ just listen for a minute,” Shay pleaded, silently putting himself in a fighting stance in case his sister decided to use force. She leaned on one leg and stared at him dead on.

            “What makes you think I’ll help you?” Miggy asked, all of her fourteen-year-old disdain seeming to leak out of every pore for her awkward, gangly brother.

            “Um… love?” Shay tried with a crooked smile. Miggy’s expression said otherwise.

            She tried to punch him, but Shay was more than used to her fisticuffs. He swatted her hand down towards the ground, redirecting her. He suddenly began tickling her, and she gasped in surprise. It wasn’t long before he had her giggling on the ground.

            “S-stop! S-s-stop it y-y-you id-diot, hahahaha! I-I’ll s-soil myself and-and I’ll hehehehe I’ll m-make you wish you were nev-ver b-born!” she shrieked, stuck in a fit of laughter as he sat on her and continued to tickle her.

            “Look, if you help me, I’ll do any one favor for you, short of murder. Do you understand?” Shay bargained, still tickling his sister. Miggy nodded as she giggled madly, trying to shove off her brother without much luck. Finally, Shay stepped off of her, and she brushed her nightdress off.

            She was much like Shay, with brown hair and a thin nose, but her features were thinner and more rounded than Shay’s. Her eyes were an ice-chip blue, courtesy of her father, and she, of course, possessed an unnatural strength.

            And of the latter she suddenly used prodigiously on her older brother, breaking his nose. He crumpled to the ground with a loud groan.

            “That was for bringing your dragon.”

            She scuffed dirt over his head with a single foot.

            “And that was for tickling me. You can tell me all about it inside.”

            With that she began to walk into her personal tower. A cat slipped in past her, interested in the smell of breakfast wafting over the air.

            Shay looked up, blood running down his nose, as Glick stuck his battered head out the broken window.

            “Hey, Ellie. I think your sister doesn’t like being woken up.”

            Shay gave a pained chuckle as he heaved himself up off the ground. He had some briefing to do. In his saddlebag, the little tracker suddenly beeped, and the arrow began blinking once more.

            ***

            “This is seriously beginning to age on me,” Shay groaned. After staying the night at his sister’s tower, they had departed to find a massive sculpture made of wooden flower mills blocking the courtyard. After that, they’d run into several more around the countryside that had attracted the attention of the villagers. However, no one seemed to know who the mysterious artist was. After so many dead ends, the three had decided to sit in the inn courtyard to discuss their findings.

            “Yeah, I know what you mean. You keep attracting all the weird people, and then I have to talk to _them,”_ Miggy complained, brushing back her brown hair. She picked up the cat that had been following them, rubbing the top of its head.

            “So far, we’ve talked to nearly everyone who’s been around, and they’ve all given us different answers. I don’t know why. We haven’t gotten anything conclusive, besides the description of an elf with silver facial markings, a faun with silver antler horns, and a humanoid with silver eyes and a prehensile tail. Added on to that are the numerous accounts of walking pyramids, gaseous elementals, a spider in a pinstriped suit and tap shoes, several different mermaid stories, and a goose-stepping rhino man,” Glick named off, recounting numerous testimonies.

            “It’s like we’re just being taunted now. Every day, there’s a sculpture right outside our inn,” Shay sighed, petting the cat that had followed them. To exacerbate their frustration, their tracker randomly decides when to work, and even worse it says they’re already at their destination, such as now. It was all they could do not to chuck it.

            “I have to say, I have eaten some pretty amazing pie while we’ve been on this trip,” Glick said, trying to lighten the mood.

            “Seconded,” Miggy agreed in a dragging voice, lifting her hand.

            “I should’ve figured you’d say that,” Shay muttered. “With you two, you can’t go wrong with food. For you, food can be anything you want it to be. You’ll eat anything.”

            “Are you trying to say I’m fat?!” Migradian argued vehemently. Shay leaned away from his sister, putting up his hands.

            “No, no! That’s not what I meant at all!”

            “As if! You’re just trying to undermine my self confidence! You _know_ I just managed to lose weight, too!”

            Glick rolled his eyes as the two squabbled, instead bending down to look at the cat that had followed them from Garreldine. It blinked two large, luminescent metallic eyes at the dragon before rubbing its back against his lower jaw. The dragon’s eyes widened in surprise at the show of affection, and the cat purred happily as it settled between the dragon’s forelegs.

            “Wait a second…” Shay suddenly gasped. By now, Miggy had a good chunk of his hair.

            “And you’d better think _twice_ before--”

            “Miggy, could you _shut up_ for all of two seconds and let me hear myself think?” Shay snapped at his sister with a nasty look, and Miggy’s eyes widened. That was a first. She let go of his hair.

            “Sheesh, who died and made you king?” she grumbled under her breath as she crossed her arms. Still deep in thought, Shay blurted out, “Obviously, not Mother.” The two stopped dead in the tracks as they thought of that phrase, and it became awkwardly silent.

            “Anyways, do you guys remember what I’d just said?” Shay asked. “I can’t seem to remember, but it struck a chord somehow.”

            “That I’m a fat lard?” Miggy sardonically replied. Shay gave her a glare.

            “That you’d never think of calling your sister a fat lard?” Glick asked, his head gently resting next to the cat curled up between his forelegs.

            “Be serious,” Shay spluttered.

He backtracked in his head, trying to retrace his thoughts. Slowly he paced.

“I’d said that with food, it could be anything you wanted it to be.”

Shay’s brow knit together, and he suddenly took the tracker out of his vest pocket. It had been stuck on ‘you are at your destination’ for nearly three hours. He’d broken one of the buttons already in his frustration, and it was pretty beat up, considering Miggy’s constant badgering and tussling. He began to walk away towards the fence, and it suddenly began beeping… in Miggy and Glick’s direction. The skinny prince started to walk around the perimeter of the fence, and the arrow continually began pointing towards the two. The little ball of light that blinked began to frantically pulse, and it hovered near his sister and friend.

“But how…” Miggy wondered pensively before the ball suddenly began to drift further to the right. The cat that had been nestled between both of Glick’s forepaws had gotten up to go towards an alley, and Shay determinedly began walking towards it. Glick quickly got up and followed. Pretty soon, the three were hastily walking after the cat that was now trotting down the alleyway, frantic to escape, and Shay shouted, “Wait! We just want to talk! Stop!”

Finally, they came to the end of a dog-legged alley, and the cat had nowhere to go. Shay stopped, Glick nearly overtaking him, and Miggy trying to rush past. Shay just managed to haul her back by the neck of her dress.

“Do you want him to run off again?” Shay hissed quietly, and Miggy sullenly stood to the side.

“Come out, ya dirty rat. We’ve been chasing you for days!” she retaliated, trying to earn back her pride.

Glick shot that one down faster than a lame duck in open season.

“Actually, that’s a cat, and we’ve had it with us for the entire trip. I’m honestly surprised I hadn’t noticed anything odd by now,” Glick admitted with a sigh. The cat paced back and forth, staring at the three. It hissed, its ears pressed back against its head.

“We don’t want to hurt you… I’m part of the royal family. I just want to talk. We want to register your race, make you official so you can have a say in the monarchy workings. That and my mother likes your art, so kudos. I don’t know how you do it, but… just would you come with us? We promise you can leave after wards. Heck, you can go and spit in my mother’s face if you want, I don’t care,” Shay said to the cat.

“Actually, he does care. Mummy might hang his hide over the big mantle in the living room if you do that,” Miggy muttered. “So be my guest.”

Shay stared at the sky as if asking for enough restraint to keep his sister from suddenly being choked by a pair of hands that just happen to be attached to the ends of his arms.

“Please. No strings attached. Just you and the queen. If you need to talk with others of your race, I understand,” Shay said to the frightened cat that backed up against the wall. In the shadows, only its eyes were visible. They were a sparkling silver.

Suddenly the eyes closed, and the form of the cat melded into the darkness around it. Shay frowned as he stared at the blank darkness that had overtaken that corner, and it slowly began to reform once more. And finally, out of the darkness came the artist they had been searching for.

She was five foot one, incredibly petite, wearing a smock and a pair of loose soft leather pants. Her hair and eyes were of the purest silver, and her skin was the color of porcelain. She brushed back the wire-like strands from her eyes shyly, staring at Shay. He was absolutely dumbstruck.

First of all, he was a _she?_ And second of all, she was a _humanoid?_ He was talking to a _humanoid?_ And he hadn’t _stuttered?_

“Just me and the queen?” the girl asked, her china-fine bone structure making her appear feline. She blinked those massive coin-like eyes. Miggy was in shock as well. She couldn’t speak a word. That was a first.

“Just you and queen,” Glick promised. The girl twisted a strand of hair around a bone-white finger. She bit her lip, and finally she smiled slyly.

“Alright. I’ll take you up on that.”

 

            “She’s a shadowmorph,” Shay said, leaning against a bookcase. “And she doesn’t want her kind to be recognized. Actually, she wants the exact opposite. She prefers they stay hidden.”

            Glick turned the page of his book using a special spatula. His claws tended to tear through the pages.

            “Really now? That’s odd. She and her race won’t have any standing on the Monarchy Counsel,” he said.

            “Argentine said that’s not a problem,” Shay sighed wistfully as he looked out the stain glass window at the courtyard where another moving sculpture stood, forever turning its windmill arms. “She agreed to work as Mummy’s sculptor, though. She does make awfully good pieces. A nice eye for figure.” The dragon tried his hardest not to make another not on ‘figure’.

            “A good eye for metals, too,” Glick chuckled happily, referring to the colossal sculpture made of black marble and silver strands that now stood in his eyrie at the top of the castle.

            “Indeed. She’s rather impressive that way,” Shay mentioned offhand, his face bathed in the light from the stained glass of the palace library.

            “Hmmm, I wasn’t aware you were on a first name basis,” Glick noted after a few more page turns. Shay became telltale quiet. Glick looked up, waiting for the meltdown.

            It didn’t take long.

            “Okay, look, I just asked a f-few questions, you know, a few about her, her culture, and-and how she does the, the…the stuff she does and how she manages to morph into a cat and, I swear th-that I’m not even talking to her! And I honestly don’t care, I just want a l-little information, and I sincerely hope she didn’t take me sleeping with her on my bed the wrong way when she was a cat!” Shay spewed in an upchucking of word vomit, and Glick only laughed.

            He’d viewed the change in Shay after this trip. He was a little more confident. He stood a little straighter. He talked a little longer. He could finally look his mother in the eye.

But some things just never change.              

  

**Author's Note:**

> Hello again! This is another story I've written, this time for Creative Writing class, and I've taken my hand to Fantasy writings. I'd like to ask a few questions, as this is a fairly long story, about the entire thing and what you think.
> 
> Is it original? Are the concepts and devices interesting? What did you like best about this story? Do you think the races were fairly well developed? What about the characters? Would you read an entire series about these characters? What made you laugh? What did you hate? What advice would you give me base on this story?
> 
> Anyhow, that's all I've got. Happy reading and God bless you!


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